Who is popular today?

Arguments that the Belfast Agreement is incompatible with the Northern Ireland protocol are “disingenuous and dangerous”, Simon Coveney has said.
In an article in today’s Sunday Telegraph, the Minister for Foreign Affairs writes that taken together, the two agreements “are a powerful expression of what negotiation and partnership can achieve”.
The Northern Ireland protocol, contained within the UK’s withdrawal agreement with the EU, allows the North to stay within the EU single market but imposes checks on good coming in from Britain.
British media has reported that the country’s attorney general had approved plans to introduce domestic legislation overriding the protocol on the basis that it threatened the Belfast Agreement, which it held to be a “higher-priority” international agreement.
Mr Coveney wrote that “as [a] friend and neighbour, I am deeply concerned for the wellbeing of the partnership between our countries”.
In comments he later echoed during an interview on Sky News on Sunday, Mr Coveney said that the protocol did not weaken the constitutional position of Northern Ireland in the UK, and that it had three times been granted democratic legitimacy: in the 2019 UK general election, the ratification of the protocol in parliament, and in this month’s Stormont elections.
“That is not to say that the protocol is working as smoothie or as easily as it could do,” he wrote, but said that he is “absolutely convinced” that there is a “landing zone for pragmatic and workable approaches” to concerns raised about its operations.
He said Brussels had proposed measures to reduce checks on goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland, but that “disappointingly the full potential of these proposals has never been explored by the UK”.
Government figures in Dublin gave a guarded welcome to reports in the UK press overnight that prime minister Boris Johnson would vow not to scrap the Brexit deal governing Northern Ireland, believing it showed the Irish stance on the issue was justified.
The Guardian reported on Saturday evening that Mr Johnson would signal a “shift in tone” before talks he will attend in Belfast on Monday, making clear he has no intention of scrapping the protocol.
Quoting officials, the newspaper reported that the prime minister will instead deliver a “tough message” to the leaders of Northern Ireland’s parties, telling them to “get back to work” after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) blocked the election of a speaker at the Stormont Assembly on Friday.
The paper reported that London expects significant changes to how the protocol operates arising from negotiations with Brussels, but that legislation on the protocol issue is some way off.
‘Briefing against EU’
Mr Coveney told Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News that unilateral action could undermine the peace process in Northern Ireland, but that there was a need to address unionist concerns about the arrangements underpinning trade.
“What I see at the moment is a British government making statements and briefing against the EU, and creating a lot of tension in my country, your closest neighbour, and also potentially being on the verge of making a decision that could fundamentally undermine the functioning of the institutions of the peace process in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“Let’s not forget, this is not only about unionism, of course it needs to be partly about unionism, but a majority of people in Northern Ireland voted against Brexit and would vote against Brexit again in the morning it was put to them.”
He added: “What’s happening at the moment has forced Ireland into taking a much more strident position and responding honestly to the unhelpful briefings that we’re getting from very, very senior levels within the British government this week, which seems to be laying the groundwork for a decision which, I believe, could be deeply harmful for the relationship between Britain and Ireland, if we don’t see sense in the next few days.”
Mr Coveney said the conflict in Ukraine made it more important for the EU and UK to work together.
“We have huge challenges to overcome together,” he said. “The idea that we would ratchet up the tension on something else... is deeply unhelpful.”
Stumbling block
Mr Coveney was speaking after Taoiseach Micheál Martin described the British government of being the main stumbling block to resolving the Northern Ireland protocol issue because, unlike the Democratic Unionist Party, it had failed to set out a possible solution.
Speaking in Cork on Saturday, Mr Martin said it appeared to him the EU no longer trusted Boris Johnson’s government to resolve difficulties over the protocol.
“It’s very unclear what will suffice for the British government. We have some sense of what would work with unionism, but we don’t have that sense with the British government,” the Taoiseach said.
He cited the role of the UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator David Frost played in trying “to torpedo” a proposed resolution last year.
Replying in a Twitter post on Saturday, Mr Frost rejected Mr Martin’s criticism and said the British government’s stance was being “ignored or misrepresented”.